Help on Council of Elders 10 man!

Hello!

We've got over 30 attempts on this boss so far, and we can't manage to get past Sul with all team alive...

We are using 2 tanks and 3 healers, 1 tank takes Sul and Frost King and the other tank takes the Priestess. We've assigned a disc priest on our warrior tanking Sul, a resto shaman on the druid tanking Priestess and a resto druid raid healing.
As for the dps, our warrior should be focusing mostly on Sul, helping out the most on the other bosses when Kazra is up. We've assigned lock and shammy on the spirits. (ilvl averages on 505, so we aren't exactly undergeared)

I dont think I've noticed a particular spell we keep dieing to, everytime it seems to be something different... personally, I've found it quite difficult to handle the sandtraps, almost always I get rooted... sometimes DBM doesnt warn you straight away, other times I get rooted before I even start taking any dmg. To handle that I've decided to make a big icon with Power Auras to track the stacks of Ensnared, hopefully that will help.

Thats the only thing that I could think of, really cant come up with a solution!

So, what do you guys think we should change, to be able to kill dem trolls?:P Also, if you would like to suggest anything class specific, please do! We all feel we could do much better, so any tips will be appreciated.

your dps is pretty bad. but this is what we do. pretty much anyone over an ilvl of 500 should EASILY be well above 100k dps

we have everything tanked on top of the priestess and IGNORE the healing add totally.

Pop lust on the pull and target sul and and cleave the rest until about 60 energy on frost king then switch to him (sul should be about 50% at this point)
Next Kazra should empower so have all dps but 1 melee switch to him while keeping sul dotted, make sure he hits 100 energy for 1-2 ticks before you end his empower
then the priest empowers. focus fire Sul and cleave her. Sul should die in this phase and then you finish her. From here on you just killed the empowered as normal.

AGAIN NEVER EVER KILL A HEALER ADD. its not worth it. the cleave you do by having 3 stacked up 100% FAR FAR FAR out weighs the tiny heal. When the priest empowers is the only time you will kill the add because its chasing a player. i cant stress this enough. stack and ignore the add.

also your tanks should be doing about double their current damage (stacking the 3 will help this a ton)

Here is how you should do it, and it worked for us after struggling on that fight.

Stack Sul & Kazrajin (Melee Boss?) together and nuke Sul down with all cooldowns available until Kazrajin is around 50% Energy. Switch to him, and nuke him so he doesn't start pulsating raid damage. Continue to nuke Sul whenever possible, and leave one good DPS on him to finish him off.

Leave the priestess out of the fight the whole time while she isn't empowered. Once empowered, bring her into the middle and AoE Cleave her down while nuking Sul still. By this time, Sul should be nearing death, and the Priestess should be nearing full energy. Switch and nuke her before she starts the AoE raid damage.

Then move her back out to avoid an instant heal (have the tank and a DPS interrupt her so she can be moved)

Getting Sul down A.S.A.P. is your priority. Once he is down, the fight becomes a joke because the healers haven't got to panic about the Sandstorm or the adds it brings. Have your team reassess their Talents, Spec, Enchantments & Gems. Try using something like www.askmrrobot.com for a starting point.

Edit: If you're having issues with being stuck in Sandtraps, that is entirely down to your healers. As a healer myself, whoever has any debuff on them, their bar changes to a certain colour depending on the debuff (Magic = Blue, Poison = Green), and I know to dispel them. If your healers don't have some form of set up to clearly dispel, tell them to sort that out, as later on dispels are vital.

Also, assign a small team of people to handle the ice debuff stacking, and have them marked. I'm colour blind, so I found it hard to see who is actually in the debuff and I would run in, causing un-needed damage. Having the marks made it very easy to see how many people were in, and made handling that much easier also!

Here is how you should do it, and it worked for us after struggling on that fight.

Stack Sul & Kazrajin (Melee Boss?) together and nuke Sul down with all cooldowns available until Kazrajin is around 50% Energy. Switch to him, and nuke him so he doesn't start pulsating raid damage. Continue to nuke Sul whenever possible, and leave one good DPS on him to finish him off.

Leave the priestess out of the fight the whole time while she isn't empowered. Once empowered, bring her into the middle and AoE Cleave her down while nuking Sul still. By this time, Sul should be nearing death, and the Priestess should be nearing full energy. Switch and nuke her before she starts the AoE raid damage.

Then move her back out to avoid an instant heal (have the tank and a DPS interrupt her so she can be moved)

Getting Sul down A.S.A.P. is your priority. Once he is down, the fight becomes a joke because the healers haven't got to panic about the Sandstorm or the adds it brings. Have your team reassess their Talents, Spec, Enchantments & Gems. Try using something like www.askmrrobot.com for a starting point.

are you high?

please tell me how your entire raid team cleaving 3 targets cant do more damage then what the heal applies? if they cant its sad. if they can then their is no point killing the add. you dont need supreme math skillz to understand this.

ps. i would not listen to this guy, if you want look at world of logs for normal kills. all the fastest and highest keep them all stacked. and you may think well thats cause they have 1337 gear. but trust me, it trivializes this whole encounter. if you can do more then 5mil extra damage per heal between the tanks and dps, then its worth it. and trust me, you can EASILY do much more then 5mil.

Because even though we can just burst through the heal some point, our ranged DPS are easily capable of just snaring and killing the add. Our tank on the Priest snares it, and our Boomkin takes care of it. If needed, leave the tank on it, with a ranged DPS and it dies. No Heal at the cost of a small amount of DPS for a few seconds is actually a bigger DPS gain ...

Also, working on the basis of: "All the fastest kills have ..." is stupid at this point. He isn't looking for the fastest kill, he is looking for the easiest. Having Sul heal with their DPS means he'll hit a Sandstorm, and then a whole array of new issues arise and cause problems. Healers die, tanks don't pick adds up or the raid damage is just to intense.

Either way, he can do as he pleases, but until he is confident in the fight, I would completely recommend killing the healing add.

Because even though we can just burst through the heal some point, our ranged DPS are easily capable of just snaring and killing the add. Our tank on the Priest snares it, and our Boomkin takes care of it. If needed, leave the tank on it, with a ranged DPS and it dies. No Heal at the cost of a small amount of DPS for a few seconds is actually a bigger DPS gain ...

Also, working on the basis of: "All the fastest kills have ..." is stupid at this point. He isn't looking for the fastest kill, he is looking for the easiest. Having Sul heal with their DPS means he'll hit a Sandstorm, and then a whole array of new issues arise and cause problems. Healers die, tanks don't pick adds up or the raid damage is just to intense.

Either way, he can do as he pleases, but until he is confident in the fight, I would completely recommend killing the healing add.

you dont understand clearly. its called math.

the add has so much health. and heals for 5 mil.

The cleave you GAIN by having all three stacked FAR OUT WEIGHS THIS. IT IS A DPS LOSS AND WILL MAKE THE FIGHT LAST LONGER if you kill the healing add. no questions asked. it isnt a theory, its all over the forums if you go and read. their is an entire thread explaining how and why this makes the fight a joke.

Because even though we can just burst through the heal some point, our ranged DPS are easily capable of just snaring and killing the add. Our tank on the Priest snares it, and our Boomkin takes care of it. If needed, leave the tank on it, with a ranged DPS and it dies. No Heal at the cost of a small amount of DPS for a few seconds is actually a bigger DPS gain ...

Also, working on the basis of: "All the fastest kills have ..." is stupid at this point. He isn't looking for the fastest kill, he is looking for the easiest. Having Sul heal with their DPS means he'll hit a Sandstorm, and then a whole array of new issues arise and cause problems. Healers die, tanks don't pick adds up or the raid damage is just to intense.

Either way, he can do as he pleases, but until he is confident in the fight, I would completely recommend killing the healing add.

To be fair, having done the fight both ways.. stacking them up and cleaving is actually far easier. The DPS gain is astronomical when you can cleave, and the number of mechanics you have to worry about decreases. Even for new guilds that are first progressing on this fight, cleaving will still be far easier.

To be fair, having done the fight both ways.. stacking them up and cleaving is actually far easier. The DPS gain is astronomical when you can cleave, and the number of mechanics you have to worry about decreases. Even for new guilds that are first progressing on this fight, cleaving will still be far easier.

thank you! lol so many people watch boss fat boss vids and think they now know the easiest way without ever looking else where.

The cleave you GAIN by having all three stacked FAR OUT WEIGHS THIS. IT IS A DPS LOSS AND WILL MAKE THE FIGHT LAST LONGER if you kill the healing add. no questions asked. it isnt a theory, its all over the forums if you go and read. their is an entire thread explaining how and why this makes the fight a joke.

The cleave you GAIN by having all three stacked FAR OUT WEIGHS THIS. IT IS A DPS LOSS AND WILL MAKE THE FIGHT LAST LONGER if you kill the healing add. no questions asked. it isnt a theory, its all over the forums if you go and read. their is an entire thread explaining how and why this makes the fight a joke.

Having tried it both ways, with DPS who are pretty damn good, we found that method slower and more annoying.

---------- Post added 2013-04-18 at 09:45 AM ----------

Nice assumptions. Done it both ways, my way suits our guild much better, and made the life of the healers a lot easier. No need to feel all high and mighty because someone agreed with you...

hate to say it but then your dps arent pretty darn good. lol it literally CANNOT BE SLOWER or more annoying. its faster AND has less mechanics. lol your just stuck in your old ways and to stubborn to realize you are making the fight harder.

hate to say it but then your dps arent pretty darn good. lol it literally CANNOT BE SLOWER or more annoying. its faster AND has less mechanics. lol your just stuck in your old ways and to stubborn to realize you are making the fight harder.

Yeh ... I'm the one who is stubborn, having said we've tried both methods, and that our DPS are actually very good for the gear they have. We manage to down a lot of progression bosses purely because of our DPS is high, making certain mechanics work much more in our favour, or allowing us to almost skip certain aspects of the fight entirely ...

Yeh ... I'm the one who is stubborn, having said we've tried both methods, and that our DPS are actually very good for the gear they have. We manage to down a lot of progression bosses purely because of our DPS is high, making certain mechanics work much more in our favour, or allowing us to almost skip certain aspects of the fight entirely ...

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what im saying is, it cant be faster dude. if you do more damage then what it heals for. it cannot be a slower method. you are doing more to the bosses and not needing to have even 1 person tab target over while everyone gains tremendous cleave

please tell me how your entire raid team cleaving 3 targets cant do more damage then what the heal applies? if they cant its sad. if they can then their is no point killing the add. you dont need supreme math skillz to understand this.

ps. i would not listen to this guy, if you want look at world of logs for normal kills. all the fastest and highest keep them all stacked. and you may think well thats cause they have 1337 gear. but trust me, it trivializes this whole encounter. if you can do more then 5mil extra damage per heal between the tanks and dps, then its worth it. and trust me, you can EASILY do much more then 5mil.

But that's damage done on mobs that don't matter in the context of this group. Did you look at their logs? Sul is what is killing the OP's raid, and every heal that lands on him is an extra 5mil that he's up. Making the fight as a whole faster is not going to help them - what they need is advice to make *SUL* die faster. And the best way to do that is to kill the adds instead of letting them heal him. There is NO valid reason, aside from "eh, it's a faster kill" to keep Priestess in the stack - she's the least dangerous and most controllable of all of them.

OP:

-Burn Heroism on the pull, DPS Sul as hard as you can. Swap to the Frost King as soon as his energy reaches ~60 or so, break him out.
-When Kaz gets shadow, keep your melee on Sul and have your ranged burn Kaz as hard as they can. And make sure your healers don't let them die to the reflect damage - your shaman can help with this by keeping Grounding Totem out on cooldown to cheese away a lot of it.
-When Priestess gets shadow, burn Sul as hard as you can. Swap to Priestess at ~60 energy or so. Kill Shadow Spirits as they spawn.
-Once Sul goes down, just follow the shadow and burn each target.

If you do the above, Sul should easily be dead well before his shadow phase comes around. Once he goes down, the only 'danger' left in the fight is managing not to die to Biting Cold/Frostbite. Once Sul AND Frost King are down, it's basically a guaranteed win.

But that's damage done on mobs that don't matter in the context of this group. Did you look at their logs? Sul is what is killing the OP's raid, and every heal that lands on him is an extra 5mil that he's up. Making the fight as a whole faster is not going to help them - what they need is advice to make *SUL* die faster. And the best way to do that is to kill the adds instead of letting them heal him. There is NO valid reason, aside from "eh, it's a faster kill" to keep Priestess in the stack - she's the least dangerous and most controllable of all of them.

OP:

-Burn Heroism on the pull, DPS Sul as hard as you can. Swap to the Frost King as soon as his energy reaches ~60 or so, break him out.
-When Kaz gets shadow, keep your melee on Sul and have your ranged burn Kaz as hard as they can. And make sure your healers don't let them die to the reflect damage - your shaman can help with this by keeping Grounding Totem out on cooldown to cheese away a lot of it.
-When Priestess gets shadow, burn Sul as hard as you can. Swap to Priestess at ~60 energy or so. Kill Shadow Spirits as they spawn.
-Once Sul goes down, just follow the shadow and burn each target.

If you do the above, Sul should easily be dead well before his shadow phase comes around. Once he goes down, the only 'danger' left in the fight is managing not to die to Biting Cold/Frostbite. Once Sul AND Frost King are down, it's basically a guaranteed win.

whats going to happen though, is because all 3 are stacked, you can wait and push it a lot further. looking at his dps the amount tanks and his classes would gain from cleaving is insane. its clear switching targets and losing focus on the add is not helping them. sul will die faster because he we be getting damaged 100% of the time by everyone. the only small down time is on kazra empower and even then he is usually rolled in with the other 3 about 40% of the time. you have to keep in mind, by eliminating mechanics, their dps will go up. by stay focused on 1 target and cleaving it will go up. the simplification of the fight without the add is astounding.

im not stressing this for shits and giggles and there isnt an enitre thread talking about people getting this encounter down with 10 pulls after taking 80 on horridon for no reason. it works. so freakin well.

And as for how do to the fight. You can do it several ways - stack them up or split them up.

Stacking all up works really well if you have decent melee cleavers (you should should hear how exited our warrior gets when he gets into a fight where he can cleave the stuffing out of things). Our very first kill we had very good AoE/cleave setup and thus stacking them up, made the fight trivial as no one had to switch to healing add and all could freely DoT things up with ease.

On our later pulls we haven't had that good of a cleave team and it makes stacking them up bit annoying as Sul doesn't die as fast as he should, but ever since we tried the stack all up strategy we keep doing it. You just need some CDs to survive Sul's empowerment.

We tried on our very first pulls on splitting them up... Brought more chaos and trouble then needed, and for us it wasn't the way to go.

I am not saying that it will make fight shorter (when you stack bosses up), but makes one mechanic trivial (ignoring the healing add) and allows people to focus on more nuking.

I suggest giving couple of pulls with stacking all up and see how it works out. If it doesn't then OP just should figure out what are their people doing wrong when they are dieing if you do the fight as you are suppose to.

what im saying is, it cant be faster dude. if you do more damage then what it heals for. it cannot be a slower method. you are doing more to the bosses and not needing to have even 1 person tab target over while everyone gains tremendous cleave

While indeed this is true, Ive seen your WoL's and your guild out gears the op's by well over 10 ilvls which is a LARGE difference in the dps output.

whats going to happen though, is because all 3 are stacked, you can wait and push it a lot further. looking at his dps the amount tanks and his classes would gain from cleaving is insane. its clear switching targets and losing focus on the add is not helping them. sul will die faster because he we be getting damaged 100% of the time by everyone. the only small down time is on kazra empower and even then he is usually rolled in with the other 3 about 40% of the time.

im not stressing this for shits and giggles and there isnt an enitre thread talking about people getting this encounter down with 10 pulls after taking 80 on horridon for no reason. it works. so freakin well.

And yet, I'm the second person in *THIS* thread that managed to get the fight only after switching AWAY from the mindless cleave and to the much more controlled seperate burn. Clearly both strategies have merit and both strategies work for some people. Saying that the OP should completely disregard one or the other is flat out stupid when they're trying to find a tactic that works for their group. So, maybe, you know, stop doing that.

While indeed this is true, Ive seen your WoL's and your guild out gears the op's by well over 10 ilvls which is a LARGE difference in the dps output.

at this point yes, but you can search through and see this is how we have always done the fight after learning about it. being able to ignore the healing add will improve any raids performance (as sad as that is, because its not like tabbing is hard in the first place lol). For guilds just now starting on this boss, being able to stack and cleave while burning sul is amazing. I can tell you this, when i first did the encounter it can be very overwhelming with so much happening. so by reducing with amount of mechanics (and in turn not only increasing dps and focus) you can make it a lot more manageable and probably take it down in only a few tries.

---------- Post added 2013-04-18 at 02:12 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Rekiara

And yet, I'm the second person in *THIS* thread that managed to get the fight only after switching AWAY from the mindless cleave and to the much more controlled seperate burn. Clearly both strategies have merit and both strategies work for some people. Saying that the OP should completely disregard one or the other is flat out stupid when they're trying to find a tactic that works for their group. So, maybe, you know, stop doing that.

well by looking at the ops logs you can see what is happening. and it happens to most people on this fight. people get scrambled and everything can start to get out of hand. stacking them reduces mechanics, increases dps, and enhances focus because their is 1 less concern.

i can also see the op's raid team gaining much more dps from this because it seems as if some of his raiders are becoming flustered. while this is something they need to overcome, simplifying the strategy will certainly improve the performance of everything even without additional cleaves and less switching.

at this point yes, but you can search through and see this is how we have always done the fight after learning about it. being able to ignore the healing add will improve any raids performance (as sad as that is, because its not like tabbing is hard in the first place lol). For guilds just now starting on this boss, being able to stack and cleave while burning sul is amazing. I can tell you this, when i first did the encounter it can be very overwhelming with so much happening. so by reducing with amount of mechanics (and in turn not only increasing dps and focus) you can make it a lot more manageable and probably take it down in only a few tries.

Indeed true BUT the op's group doesn't have that much cleave and the dps is slightly on the low side so stacking they would probably run into an overload. But that's just my guess it would probably be slightly easier for them if they did the fight in a controlled environment.